Ryan Adams Calls Father John Misty a ‘Self-Important A—hole’

Color Ryan Adams unimpressed with the antics of Father John Misty. Early this morning, Adams took aim at the singer, whose given name is Josh Tillman, in a series of tweets.

Adams has since deleted the tweets, but not before Stereogum was on the case. It started when Adams saw a tweet promoting Misty’s upcoming appearance on Austin City Limits, Adams retweeted the information, adding his own, “It's so wonderful you booked the most self-important a—hole on earth to ‘break it all down for us’ while he does his Nick Cave impression.”

Superstar came back with, “I want to hug @TheRyanAdams right now. Love is all we have. Targeting other artists is trivial,” to which Adams said, “Yeah, Elton Josh has never targeted another artist before. Ever. Weren't you in a video of his lampooning Kurt Cobain? Ummmmmmm,” referring to the recent clip for Misty’s “Total Entertainment Forever.”

Adams wasn’t done with Superstar. “Did you hug Elton Josh when he talks s--- about every person ever?,” he asked. “You must be in a constant embraces with Sir F—head.”

Somebody asked Adams who he was referring to by “Elton Josh,” and Adams wrote back, “FJM. He sounds like s— Elton John but if he was just sitting in a corner staring at his hands on LSD.”

Misty and Adams have been at each other’s throats for a while. Two years ago, Misty mocked Adams’ song-for-song cover of Taylor Swift’s 1989 by recording and uploading his own take on Swift’s “Welcome to New York” and “Blank Space” in the style of the Velvet Underground, claiming they were Adams' songs. “I was taking this dude to task for what I saw as a grotesque stunt and matching it with another grotesque stunt,” Tillman mused last year. “It ironically became the biggest publicity that I’ve ever received, and that grossed me out. I had to take them down. Which then, of course, made it even bigger. It was such a comedy of errors.”